Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Chilling!

This is a tape recording of the interview of one of the accused Renault "spies" by Renault's security chief. "Kafkaesque" is the word that comes to mind. The man is accused of the gravest of crimes but in the most veiled terms, so that it is impossible for him to guess exactly what he is being accused of. His reaction is surprisingly mild--which may only have spurred his accuser's suspicions--but most likely he was stunned and bewildered. It is intimated that confession will be best for the soul of the accused, that things will go easier for him: but otherwise it will be la voie lourde. A chilling scene: imagine if this happened to you.

2 comments:

All I can say is I am delighted to hear that this vile Christian Husson has been fired (?). The arrogance, the certainty where there was none. And laughing his head off like the devil himself throughout! Sadism. The out of place tutoyement. Words fail....The attitude of this man Husson perfectly symbolizes the Sarkozy era of the French elite: entitled, sadistic mediocrity....and maybe not just the Sarkozy era.

One of the special tortures of the Inquisition was that an accused person might be interrogated without being told what the accusations against him were. One of the guarantees of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, on the other hand, is that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. . . ."

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I have been a student and observer of French politics since 1968. In that time I've translated more than 130 books from the French, including Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. I chair the seminar for visiting scholars at Harvard's Center for European Studies and am a member of the editorial board of French Politics, Culture, and Society and of The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville. You can read some of my writing on French politics and history here and a short bio here. From time to time I will include posts by other students of France and French politics (accessible via the index link "guest"). My hope is that this site will become a gathering place for all who are interested in discussing and analyzing political life in France. You can keep track of posts on Twitter by following "artgoldhammer".